My wife and I are both "dog people". We have three Airedale terriers, all of whom were "rescued". But as much as we love our dogs and think that they're special, there is another class of dogs who perform some very important and possibly life saving functions.
We all have seen dogs who have been trained to help people who are blind or dogs who help those who have lost their hearing. Now there are specially trained dogs who can identify low blood sugar in humans. According to the website www.dogs4diabetics.com, these dogs can detect "subtle scent changes that hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) creates in body chemistry, changes undetectable to their human companions."
Hypoglycemia can have some very scary consequences. Our brain needs a steady supply of sugar (glucose), because it doesn't store or manufacture its own energy supply. If glucose levels become too low, as occurs with hypoglycemia, the following symptoms can occur:
- Confusion,abnormal behavior, or both, such as the inability to complete routine tasks.
- Visual disturbances, such as double vision and blurred vision.
- Seizures or loss of consciousness can occur but are uncomon.
Another program, www.allpurposecanines.com , trains dogs who can detect BOTH low and high blood glucose levels. They say that "a strong team concept is essential to the success of a service dog partnership. Parents, family members, healthcare professionals and educators all have important roles to ensure the team's success." Is their program successful? They are "especially proud of the 100% success rate with this program."
In an article in the March 2008 issue of Diabetes Forecast, "what is uncanny is the reliabilty" of these dogs. Trainers at Dogs for Diabetics in Concord, California say that these trained dogs are "right 90% of the time".And what's more, some have "the ability to sense a dangerous drop in blood glucose BEFORE the drop occurs."
From my years of helping people who have diabetes, I think the most important and critical time to know when a blood sugar drop occurs is during sleep. For example, If too much insulin is given before bedtime, a hypoglycemic event may occur during sleep, and the person with diabetes would not be awake to react and treat the symptoms. A Diabetes "Scentry" Dog could save this person's life.
A new type of sensor that changes color with rising blood sugar levels is now being testing by scientists. About the size of the clicker on the end of a ballpoint pen, this high tech tattoo is made up of tiny nanospheres which contain a special kind of ink that reacts with glucose. Invented by Heather Clark, a biomedical engineer at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the tattoo hasn’t yet been tested in humans but the early results in mice have been very promising.
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